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To: Non-Sequitur
Well considering tariffs had been on the forefront of national discord for over 40 years and the fact that slavery wasn't even broached by the Whig/Republicans seriously until the mid 1850s (got to pick something the people 'care' about to get elected right?), what do you think?

BTW, since this was such a 'serious' concern, exactly how many members did the Abolition Party (percentage wise of entire population) have circa 1860 in the north?

14 posted on 11/11/2002 1:51:13 PM PST by billbears
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To: billbears
BTW, since this was such a 'serious' concern, exactly how many members did the Abolition Party (percentage wise of entire population) have circa 1860 in the north?

Beats me, but the North didn't launch a rebellion to end slavery. You should be asking how many southerners saw the election of Lincoln as a threat to their institution of slavery. The answer to that would be just about all of them. That's why they rebelled.

21 posted on 11/11/2002 2:21:57 PM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: billbears
...exactly how many members did the Abolition Party (percentage wise of entire population) have circa 1860 in the north?

Probably about the same as the Libertarian Party today (sarcasm).

46 posted on 11/12/2002 7:45:34 AM PST by CWRWinger
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To: billbears
BTW, since this was such a 'serious' concern, exactly how many members did the Abolition Party (percentage wise of entire population) have circa 1860 in the north?

Very few. Most Republicans, including Lincoln, were not abolitionists. They opposed slavery but did not demand abolition. They only sought to contain it where it existed. They were "Free Soilers".

Well considering tariffs had been on the forefront of national discord for over 40 years and the fact that slavery wasn't even broached by the Whig/Republicans seriously until the mid 1850s

Tariffs had not been a political issue for decades by 1860. That issue was resolved in 1833 and tariffs decreased every year afterward and were at their lowest level ever in 1860. Slavery became an issue in the 1850s because the slave powers pushed through the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which overturned the Missouri Compromise of 1820. It was followed by the Fugitive Slave Act, which trampled both states-rights, and individual rights and drove further wedges between the sections. It was again more 'in-your-face' overreaching by the slave powers. Those bills killed the ever-compromising Whigs as a national party and the free states reacted by creating the Republican party and it's free-soil platform. The Republicans would have never come into existence if the slave powers had not dominated the Democrat party and discarded all previous compromises.

The south, or more correctly, the Slaveocracy of the south who controlled all political power, made slavery an issue, not the north.

55 posted on 11/12/2002 8:12:58 AM PST by Ditto
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To: billbears
Well considering tariffs had been on the forefront of national discord for over 40 years and the fact that slavery wasn't even broached by the Whig/Republicans seriously until the mid 1850s (got to pick something the people 'care' about to get elected right?), what do you think?

Well, this one takes us kneedeep into the manure pile.

What you call "fact" isn't even remotely such. For us to accept your "fact" requires us to ignore the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska act of 1854, and "bloody Kansas", all of which had to do with slavery.

No less a notable than John C. Calhoun -- no Whig, he -- described the long history of the slave issue in his famous dissent from the Clay Compromise:

Unless something decisive is done, I again ask, What is to stop this agitation before the great and final object at which it aims--the abolition of slavery in the States--is consummated? Is it, then, not certain that if something is not done to arrest it, the South will be forced to choose between abolition and secession? Indeed, as events are now moving, it will not require the South to secede in order to dissolve the Union. Agitation will of itself effect it, of which its past history furnishes abundant proof--as I shall next proceed to show.

And of course we mustn't forget those minor details such as the slavery controversy during the Constitutional Convention....

Tarriffs were an issue, but they were not the issue. The secessionists themselves said it clearly. For them, the issue was slavery.

But I've long ago despaired of expecting you guys to be swayed by the record.

68 posted on 11/12/2002 9:21:33 AM PST by r9etb
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Yep, Hogwash, all of it. To believe any of you Rebel Hating Yankee's on this subject, I'd also have to believe that Herr Klinton was a Saint and Hillary an Angel.

I guess ignorance is universal because the North still seems to have it's share of ignorant individuals.

Slavery did not start nor was it a cause of the war.

The South Seceeded to the rights gauranteed to it by the Bill of Rights and all of the rebel bashing in the world will not change that historical fact.

194 posted on 11/12/2002 1:56:27 PM PST by Leatherneck_MT
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Yep, Hogwash, all of it. To believe any of you Rebel Hating Yankee's on this subject, I'd also have to believe that Herr Klinton was a Saint and Hillary an Angel.

I guess ignorance is universal because the North still seems to have it's share of ignorant individuals.

Slavery did not start nor was it a cause of the war.

The South Seceeded to protect the rights gauranteed to it by the Bill of Rights and all of the rebel bashing in the world will not change that historical fact.

195 posted on 11/12/2002 1:56:47 PM PST by Leatherneck_MT
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